• Awesome Raspberry Pi automatic guitar tuner project

  Musicians and Raspberry Pi enthusiasts may be interested in a new project published to the official Raspberry Pi blog this week documenting a new project using the small Raspberry Pi Pico mini PC that can automatically tune your guitar. The Pico powered guitar tuning box has been created by Redditor u/thataintthis otherwise known as Guyrandy Jean-Gilles and makes it easy for you to perfectly tune your guitar. The project is perfect for beginners or those looking for a little help to remove the boredom of tuning your axe before a session.

• First RISC-V computer chip lands at the European Processor Initiative

  The European Processor Initiative (EPI) has run the successful first test of its RISC-V-based European Processor Accelerator (EPAC), touting it as the initial step towards homegrown supercomputing hardware.

  EPI, launched back in 2018, aims to increase the independence of Europe's supercomputing industry from foreign technology companies. At its heart is the adoption of the free and open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture for the development and production of high-performance chips within Europe's borders.

  The project's latest milestone is the delivery of 143 samples of EPAC chips, accelerators designed for high-performance computing applications and built around the free and open-source RISC-V instruction set architecture. Designed to prove the processor's design, the 22nm test chips – fabbed at GlobalFoundries, the not-terribly-European semiconductor manufacturer spun out of AMD back in 2009 – have passed initial testing, running a bare-metal "hello, world" program as proof of life.

• FPGA Retrocomputer: Return To Moncky

  This project, called the Moncky project, is a step above the usual 8-bit computer builds as it is actually a 16-bit computer. It is built around an Arty Spartan-7 FPGA dev board running around 20 MHz and has access to 2 x 128 kB dual-port RAM for memory. To access the outside world there is a VGA output, PS/2 capability, SPI, and uses an SD card as a hard drive. This project really shines in the software, though, as the project creator [Kris Demuynck] builds everything from scratch in order to illustrate how everything works for educational purposes, and is currently working on implementing a C compiler to make programming the computer easier.

• Elderly Remote Keeps Things Simple | Hackaday

  If you are lucky, you’ve never experienced the heartbreak of watching a loved one lose their ability to do simple tasks. However, as hackers, we have the ability to customize solutions to make everyday tasks more accessible. That’s what [omerrv] did by creating a very specific function remote control. The idea is to provide an easy-to-use interface for the most common remote functions.

• SONOFF Smart Stackable Power Meter supports up to 128 20A relays - CNX Software

  ITEAD has introduced many smart switches over the year under the SONOFF brand, and their latest SONOFF Smart Stackable Power Meter is DIN mountable and made for larger industrial applications with up to 128 devices.

  The solution is comprised of the “SPM-Main” WiFi connected main unit controlling up to 32 “SPM-4Relay” units with 4 relays each using RS485 daisy-chaining.

• A Toy Jeep For After The Apocalypse | Hackaday

  These toys usually have one or two 12V high-speed motors driving plastic gear trains for the rear wheels. This one is a two-motor model and unexpectedly comes with a steering motor for parental remote control. All its electronics were dead, so rather than do a complete motor upgrade he instead doubled the voltage and installed decent motor controllers with an Arduino sending them instructions. Otherwise it received an upgrade and stiffening of its chassis and steering components, and the kids plastic steering wheel was replaced with a wooden one.

• Embrace The New, But Don’t Forget The Old | Hackaday

  We were trading stories of our first self-made PCBs in the secret underground Hackaday bunker, and a couple of the boards looked really good for first efforts. Of course there were mistakes and sub-optimal routing, but who among us never connects up the wrong signals or uses a bad footprint? What lead me to have a hacker “kids these days have it so easy” moment was that all of the boards were, of course, professionally fabbed with nice silkscreens. They all looked great.

  What a glorious time to be starting down the hardware path! When I made my first PCB, the options were basically laying down tape, pulling out the etch resist pen, or paying a bazillion inflation-adjusted dollars for a rapid prototype board. This meant that the aspiring hacker also had to have a steady hand and be at least casually acquainted with a little chemistry. The ability to just send your files out to a PCB house means that the barrier to stepping up your hardware game from plug-them-together modules is lower than it’s ever been.

• AugLimb is the extra arm you didn't know you needed | Arduino Blog

  As a maker, you probably have a third hand for your soldering station. They come in handy when you need to hold a component, PCB, solder, and soldering iron all at the same time. But an extra hand would be useful for a wide range of other everyday activities. That’s why this team of researchers created a compact robotic third arm called AugLimb.

  While robotic augmentations aren’t a new idea, they aren’t often as usable as AugLimb. This robotic arm is lightweight and compact, making it comfortable to wear. It can’t lift much weight, but it is very dexterous thanks to seven degrees of freedom and an extendable gripper. It attaches to the wearer’s bicep and folds up when not in use. When it is time for action, AugLimb unfolds and reaches further than the user’s own arm.

• Classic Chip Line-Up Powers This Fun Dub Siren Synth | Hackaday

  There’s a certain elite set of chips that fall into the “cold, dead hands” category, and they tend to be parts that have proven their worth over decades, not years. Chief among these is the ubiquitous 555 timer chip, which nearly 50 years after its release still finds its way into the strangest places. Add in other silicon stalwarts like the 741 op-amp and the LM386 audio amp, and you’ve got a Hall of Fame lineup for almost any project.

Seeed has launched a pair of Leetop carrier boards for the Jetson Xavier NX and Nano: a $349 “A205” with 5x SATA, 5x USB, 2x GbE, and 6x CSI lanes, and a compact, $179 “A203” board with 40-pin GPIO.

Seeed is selling a pair of carrier boards from China-based Leetop that both support the Nvidia Jetson Nano and Jetson Xavier NX. The full-featured, $349 A205 board ships on Oct. 16, and the $179, ready-to-deploy A203 is available Sep. 30.

Do you kind of want a macropad, but aren’t sure that you would use it? Hackaday alum [Jeremy Cook] is now making and selling the JC Pro Macro on Tindie, which is exactly what it sounds like — a Pro Micro-based macro keypad with an OLED screen and a rotary encoder. In the video below, [Jeremy] shows how he made it into a music maker by adding a speaker and a small solenoid that does percussion, all while retaining the original macro pad functionality.

[Jeremy]’s original idea for a drum was to have a servo seesawing a chopstick back and forth on the table as one might nervously twiddle a pencil. That didn’t work out so well, so he switched to the solenoid and printed a thing to hold it upright, and we absolutely love it. The drum is controlled with the rotary encoder: push to turn the beat on or off and crank it to change the BPM.

To make it easier to connect up the solenoid and speaker, [Jeremy] had a little I²C helper board fabricated. There’s one SVG connection and another with power and ground swapped in the event it is needed. If you’re interested in the JC Pro Macro, you can pick it up in various forms over on Tindie. Of course, you might want to wait for version 2, which is coming to Kickstarter in October.